Hooker on a rascal

I once worked with power rangers in Westwood California it was a fantastic time in my life full of promise and new experiences.  There was a lot of drinking as well.  In fact probably more drinking than promise but its the entertainment industry.  The company I worked for was a training ground for this industry that takes all comers and spits them out in larger numbers than it accepts.  This place was a wonderland of learning and partying.  After work drinks were a staple and expected.  I got out of several hot spots  simply due to the relationships I cultivated with executives while slamming highballs and playing wingman.  So after a usual weekending gathering I stumbled my way to my car to get nudging ass home.  Don't judge I was young and it was the 90's. As I drove back to my Hollywood apartment down the famed sunset blvd in my state I missed the glaring yellow cast of the "you're out of gas ya jackass" light.  As it will happen my car lurched and jerked to a stop.  I was stranded in one of the richest neighborhood in the country in one of the most famous streets on the planet.  I was screwed.  I evaluated the situation and broke into swrevy action by jumping out of my car and pushing it one very long block to a side street as there is no parking on Sunset in this neighborhood.  I ran through my mental Thomas guide to orientate myself and the nearest gas station.  Blocks and blocks away was the outcome deep into Hollywood further down in an area know as the strip.  You see filling stations are far too gouache for the flats of Beverly Hills.  So off I went walking off into the night in a 'hood so safe I actually posed the biggest threat to law enforcement.  I was in for a long drunk walk through some lovely mansions.  

I walk for miles until the manicured lawns and personal trainers gave way to club lights aging hair bands members strutting the spandex.  I was getting close to my goal, gas that precious precious liquid.  

So after my long ass hike through the land of the rich and famous I came to a gas station where I begged the attendant to let me use their gas can to carry back to my deserted vehicle.  He would not have it.  After several minutes of heated negotiating in broken English, to this day I cannot recall exactly how I wrested the disputed can from his clutches.  I just know I had the can and needed to fill it.  

Filling a gas can in public  is a deflating experience.  You're there filling a small ridiculous red can with no car in sight, everyone knows you fucked up and ran out of gas.  It's a rookie move and everyone knows it.  Now as I'm standing there filling I hear a low hum come up behind me.  I hear a pleasant if not annoyingly sexy voice say,"run out gas huh?" I turn to see a creature one does not expect to see in nature, a hooker on a rascal motorized chair.  Yeah, I respond looking ashamed and confused.  "What the hell is she doing on a rascal" was racing through my mind but I explain my sad tale of a journey home interrupted.  As I tell the tale I attempt to process what exactly I'm seeing.  In front of me is a mid twenties white girl who's name escapes me after so many years. I do remember she hailed from Champaign IL and was working her way up to San Francisco because,"it's better up there." She never explained her claim.  Her body didn't look like it required the aid of a rascal motorized chair; a solid caring father figure sure, but not a rascal. She had fair skin and wore appropriate whore clothing, overly tight and tacky.  I did notice she had a rather large set of fake boobs, a tax right off I assume.  She was essentially a hooker on a rascal.  

After our small talk she asked if I needed a ride to my stranded car.  Of course the only answer in my state to this was yes. I hopped on her little rascal and we took of at such a comically slow pace Tim Conway would have been jealous.  There I was all 6 foot 3 200lbs. of me gas can on my knees facing backwards on the back of a rascal drivin' by a hooker trucking down Sunset Blvd. 

On our trek she was cordial and accommodating by asking if I would like a sexual act involving her mouth and my joint.  I graciously declined as the ride was quite enough I thought.  There was really only one question running through my mind as the bright lights and sounds of the Sunset Strip rushed by us.  Her conversation was lost in the din of my thoughts, what does she do with her rascal during the trick? Tricks trunk maybe, bike chain to a street sign I don't know.  Either way we reached the end of our adventure when the border of of Beverly Hills were the sidewalk ramps ended. The curbs it seemed were designed specifically to thwart slightly handicapped rascal bound hookers.  No ramps no tramps.  

She explained this is the end of my ride.  Unless I wanted another type of ride.  I understood her heavy handed innuendo and once again declined.  However seeing how I kept her from making money for the duration of our trek I spotted her a few bucks, you know for the electricity.  I felt it was the right thing to do.

I walked the rest of the way due to a blatant disregard for title 24 by the Beverly Hills DOT.  After a long crooked walk I made it back to my car, emptied the embarrassing can.  Knowing I had a great story to tell of the fantastic trip down Sunset Boulevard in the back of a hookers rascal.

18 Years Ago Today

We were stepping out of the C&C club on Sunset Blvd in the wee hours of the morning after closing the club down.  We wouldn't normally go to a place like this but my girlfriend at time and myself had a mutual friend in town visiting from Colorado.  We all were fairly buzzed as sauntered down a very dark Havenhurst Drive to our car.  As we chatted and laughed at the night a white VW Golf rolled past and pulled into the drive way ahead of us.  Having your guard down in Hollywood is not a good idea especially in those days but its true enough today.  As the car stopped a young black man got out pulled a hood over his head and leveled a sawed off shotgun at my head.  He approached and demanded our money as he shuttled the barrel over each of our faces.  Its true time slows down and everything seems to get that much more clear and defined when something like this happens.  I handed him my wallet, the girls handed him the money they had in their pockets and no one said a word.  I had lost contact with the outside world at this point, there could have been a marching band passing during all of this and I wouldn't have noticed through the thumping of my heart beats and sound of air going in and out of my lungs.  The gunman started searching our pockets for anything we neglected to hand over.  Greedy son of a bitch.  My girlfriend had overlooked a $5 bill in her back pocket this did not please the hood.  He got the barrel in the face and a taunt of "Don't lie.  Next time it will get you killed."   Pretty chilling at the time.  As he was backing off I don't know why I did it but I asked him to give me my drivers license back as he wasn't going to be able to use a skinny white guys ID for anything and that he was just going to dump it.  He actually stopped and pulled out of my wallet and handed it back to me.  I couldn't believe I won that little victory in the situation.  That's what it seemed like a victory.  The whole incident only lasted a minute at the very most however it felt like an hour.  The adrenaline had dumped and nerves kicked in after the guy had left.  One of the girls started to lose her shit and started crying which is understandable.  We flagged down a cop who were amazingly all over the place immediately after the robbery.  We then had to wait for the LAPD and the West Hollywood Sheriffs dept. decide who's case it was as Havenhurst is the boarder line between the two jurisdictions.  We gave our statements to both groups and neither seemed to be very excited about taking on the case.  I remember the police lecturing us on late night Hollywood.  Yeah thanks.  After an hour I was able to get to a pay phone, yes a pay phone as cell phones were not in the picture for another 5 or so years, and cancel my credit cards and ATM card.  We were finally on our way home thinking we were having a really shitty night.  Little did we know that would be the best part of the night.
As we made our way down Santa Monica Blvd. back to our apartment in West LA we came to the intersection of Wilshire and Santa Monica.  We crossed the intersection at 4:31 am and world started to shake apart.  My initial thought was we had a blowout and that our luck was pretty shitty that night.  That only lasted about a second as I could see the car was actually bouncing sideways as it rode the waves of asphalt that were rolling down the road.  When I say waves of asphalt I mean the asphalt was rolling in waves just like the ocean without the white caps.  It was surreal and terrifying.  The power was awesome, it was all encompassing as everything was shaking.  The high rises of Century City were visibly swaying, the power poles were shaking so much the electricity was hopping the lines and arcing through the air in an incredible light show that would be entertaining if it wasn't so terrifying.   Transformers were exploding one after the other down the line.  And what made it worse is that it kept going and going and going.  It truly seemed like a very long time of  uncontrollable shaking and rolling.  Throughout the entire quake the vocal expression of terror grew as time went on.  The girls were full on screaming by the end of the quake I was cussing like a sailor then it was over as fast as it erupted.  The signal and street lights were all out as far as I could see down Santa Monica.  The building lights were all out.  The radio station was off air, nothing but static.  The only thing you could hear and it was almost as loud as the quake itself was a symphony of car alarms and building alarms from across the darkened city.
I floored the little Honda I was driving and got it up to 95 mph down the dark Santa Monica to get back to the house and what we thought was safety.  There were no other cars on the road in any direction down any side street, nothing.  It was incredibly creepy Night of the Commet type stuff.  As we pulled up to our apartment the neighbors were  all out walking around in the dark with flashlights, and this always sticks out in my mind, everyone had the same wide eyed open mouth expression on their face eerily lit up by the directional flashlights.  It was a solid 5 minutes after the quake before we were standing in our apartment building strangely enough the Melrose Place like pool was still sloshing around nearly empty as it spilling out most of its water during the violence of the shaking.  The ground apartments were swamped with water. As we made it up the stairs to our top floor apartment we noticed some large cracks in the building.  The apartment itself was a disaster.  Everything was off the walls, shelves and cupboards and scattered haphazardly across the floor in various stages of destruction.  A nail was stepped upon by one of the girls and needed to be addressed.  After that we just tried to clean up and get information.  The power was out, the gas was off, phones didn't work and the refrigerator was practically empty.  We were not remotely close to prepared to deal with this kind of disaster, no food, water, or as it would turn out money/credit cards due to the robbery.  We were truly screwed.   At least we could stay in our apartment that night.
After some very kind treatment from friends, coworkers, and Discover Card were were able to get money and food during the time it took to get our ATM and Credit cards straightened out.  You have to remember the business were all closed in our area, the banks and ATMs didn't have power, the phones were inoperable and there was no internet.  The grace of friendship is all we had for several days.  We were able to get our friend off to the airport once it opened up and it was there were able to contact Discover Card and tell them our story,  they forwarded us the money and if I remember correctly they removed the amount from our balance that next month without us having to pay it.  I could be wrong about that.  I remember they treated us like humans and I will always appreciate that.
The days after the quake were rough but once we had money to purchase food and water were better off than a lot other in Los Angeles.  The month of sleeping in shoes in the living room because the fear of aftershocks and building integrity sticks out in my mind as well.  It was very stressful
Oh and eight days after the Northridge quake my favorite Toyota 4x4 truck got stolen out of the parking garage.  So yeah it was not the best week of my life.

The Snake Pit

I hate snakes. I once ran on water at Electra Lake high in the San Juan mountains just to get away from a garder snake or whatever they are called. I used to think they ware called "gardner" snakes, but I also thought Jesus died when he was only four months old when I was a kid so there you go. For those of you who don't get that, he was born in December died in April... four months. I guess I took things too literally but I digress. I'm sitting in a bar maned the Snake Pit on Melrose Ave in Hollywood or west Hollywood not sure anyway I've been here a few times. Everything being equal I've been here a lot however most of my visits were several tears(that is supposed to be 'years' but my auto correct knows me too well) ago. They still know me and always say, "Hey!". Which I know is polite speak for, "you used to spend a lot of money in here but we can't remember your name so we'll just smile and say, 'hey." Which frankly is OK with me. I would rather that than have to go into an in-depth conversation with bar folk. Bar folk suck. If you are older than 25 and dont know that bar folk suck you are either bar folk yourself or you are plainly stupid. This is a universal truth just like gravity and you should always pass the first Price is Right showcase. The fact that bar folk suck makes them interesting to hang out and watch. Their inherent sucky-ness is entertaining like carnies or adult boy scouts. Anyway I'm here by myself as my old lady is out with her friends eating somewhere fancy no doubt and all my friends I've attempted to contact are either on a date or out at a show of one kind or another. Adding to the night is the fact I've placed a dietary restriction on myself to where I can only drink tequila. If you know me you know tequila is not my friend. Jose has kicked my ass more times than high school algebra. So here I sit in a crowded Hollywood dive bar with some unrecognizable tune droning on the juke box under the more of a din crowd noise. I'm a good several into my margaritas so much so not only do I have a heavy buzz I have killer heart burn. Yeah fuck you forty years old. Fuck you. I actualy enjoy my alone time in a packed bar. I have a SOP of ignoring everyone in the place while observing all the goings on. Kind of like the old creepy guy without the "creepy." I hope.

Writing flow ruined. I'm done.

Trying this again. A cool moto vid.

Computers, can't live with them, can't shoot'em. Well I guess you could shoot them.

First off I know more about the nether regions of the Hilton sisters than I do about what makes this computer work, operate, or function properly I want to get that out right at the beginning.  You see growing up, all the way through school, I never once worked on a computer until my senior year of high school which was back in the ass end of the 1980's.  Yes the last century to you young readers out there who should have been dissuaded from reading this blog by the "adult content" banner out front you little bastards.  The funny thing about my computer class in high school is that it was a programing class... let that sink in a little... a programing class.  We had to create simple programs using some dead computer language to get a round ball rotating on the screen or some simple shit like that.  Now never ever even touching a computer in the past I'm thinking I may have made an error in my class selection at this point.  I needed a class that started with "push this button to turn on magic box."  I blame the system.  Either way I'm a guy who failed algerbra (I'm so bad at it I can't even spell it)  struggled with geometry, and laughed at the idea of Calc-usless.  Anyway I guess more to the point like any other red blooded American, I had never taken any foreign language classes either up until that point* so learning a new language that was comprised of numbers and symbols was like trying to read  any other emotion besides surprise on the Beverly Hills House Wives Botoxed plastic fake faces.  It wasn't going to happen.  So ultimately the class kicked my ass I did nothing but I did get "help" from the other students and somehow passed with flying colors which shows a glaring problem in our school systems.  I should have failed that class horribly but I got a very good grade.  I never got that damn ball rolling on my own. 
All that to say I don't know shit about computers or their funky strange language of terms and error codes.  A virus to me is a cold and you wait for it to get better.  Not so much with computers I'm finding out.  As a result of my total lack of knowledge about computers my Macbook Pro is dead to the world after an ill fated OS upgrade.  Now OS stands for operating system I'm told and my old computer needed a new operating system to upgrade my iphone 4 software or whatever.  In process of upgrading my Mac froze up like a Democrat with power in the House and Senate, nothing, no movement no booting up no pinwheel of rainbow death.  Nothing.  Off to the Mac store I go I guess.  Luckily I have a back up PC that worked  wonders if not a little shitty and clunky and wholly not as cool as a Mac.  Well it worked up until about two days ago when I clicked on a  what looked like an official notice from somewhere.  Bam my PC was frozen with crazy deadly warnings of viruses and corrupted files, much like a out numbered Republican in the House or Senate.  Turns out they were all false positives to get me to click on the Trojan horse type virus.  See I understand the historical references when dealing with computers.  I get that, I guess its all in the way you learn stuff.  Anyway I didn't learn fast enough and have ended up with a feverishly working paper weight of a PC.  The internal hamster wheels are flying but nothing is happening.  Scanning with various malware and virus programs aren't doing shit, at least nothing in two days and I figure in the Tron world that's like forever isn't it?  Or is it the opposite where its like a nano-second.  I can't remember and the movie isn't out for a couple days so I won't know until then but I digress.

*I took French 101 my senior year.  There were several benefits of the class for a 16 year old guy, two of which were the teacher Ms. Zoa Glass.   Heellllloooo Zoa.  The others were a hoard of freshman and sophomore girls.  Je m'appelle Erik.

Knocking off the cobwebs.

Wow I can't believe how long its been since I updated this thing. Way too long. I really have nothing to contribute at this time but so many others are blogging now I felt compelled. Yes the power of bog compels me.
At some point I will have to let loose on to the world my blog and reap the whirlwind.

Updates since the last entry... from sometime in 2009
got engaged to my ol' lady
1 car crash
2 motorcycle crashes(1 small one, 1 big one)
1 broken hand
1 dislocated shoulder
lost 30lbs
gained back 15lbs(broken hand and what not)
changed Crossfit gyms
increased my kingdom on Facebook

Yeah that's about it.

Salvage from my old Myspace page Angela 11/9/08

Its happened again, another of my friends has passed away. Angela's passing was a tragic accident no one could have expected. Two friends in a matter or 8 days is too much. I think we forget that life is fleeting and we only have a certain number of wake ups in our lives. When we forget this fact life reminds us in cruel and unexpected ways. I didn't need the reminder I can assure you but never the less I got a wake up call if you will. A message from a friend to call him about something as soon as I get the message, left in a tone of voice that lets me know its serious and its not a casual call. I did like everyone else most likely and braced myself for bad news all the while thinking if not hoping it was not really that serious. It was about as serious as one can get in this world. It was real for sure but somehow I couldn't wrap my head around the news. What? That's crazy! Who? Oh my god! Oh my god. That's all the lady heard as she passed me on the side walk while she walked her stupidly small dog past my conversation. I get no cell reception in my home so I have to go outside to converse with the world. My neighbors get to hear everything from how my grandpa is doing, to my ass kissing eternal hunt for a proper job, to me getting tragic news of a friend missing and another friend in pure agony over the loss. Too much for such a small amount of time. I feel numb as it hasn't really sunken in yet. It has intellectually. I know I will never see my sweet friend again. I know she will not flash that smile that scrunches up her nose again.

I can imagine how the families feel, I've been there and feel so terrible for their loss. Its something you can't fathom unless you have gone through it. People give sympathies and prayers and the positive thoughts which is very nice but effectively useless when you're inside your own head rolling through numbness, erratic emotions, and memories faster that you can process them. It hurts and doesn't go away for a long time. It sneaks up on you during the most innocent of times. It could be a song playing on the radio or a movie or a smell sometimes nothing at all that sends you from your melodic everyday droning to the pain of loss and ache of missing. Its not a fair fight that's for sure. They will both be missed as both were really great people that deserved the best in life. I guess not really knowing what awaits us after passing, maybe they did get the best in life and are enjoying the fruits of their lives. I don't know. Nobody does but its all we can hope for to put our minds and souls at easy between sporadic moments pain.

Angela I miss you. You are still a sweet caring friendly soul in death as you were in life.